Nanoreviews: Demon Daughter. Installment Immortality, Overcaptain

Demon Daughter, by Lois McMaster Bujold

A very gentle story, one of my favorites of the series. In Demon Daughter a young girl, Atta, is washed ashore following a shipwreck and for reasons ends up in the care of Penric, who (if you haven’t been keeping up with this series) is basically a semi itinerant priest who deals with cases of demon possession.

Demon Daughter ends up a combination of a small domestic drama and a question of the nature of demon possession in this universe and it is small and it is quiet, but it is deeply powerful. Atta is possessed by a very young demon and that allows for the perspective of Desdemona to come very much to the forefront of this novella.

This is the twelfth novella in the Penric and Desdemona series and for a reader who has been along for the ride since the first volume, Demon Daughter is deeply satisfying.

Installment Immortality, by Seanan McGuire

I have to wonder how close we are getting to an end point with the Incryptid series. That’s not a statement of exhaustion, but an observation of the stories McGuire is telling at this point. Spoilers will likely abound - but the previous book, Aftermarket Afterlife, had the Covenant (if you know you know) launching major attacks against the Price-Healy family and our heroes hitting back with a counter attack utilizing the ghostly skills of Mary Dunlavy to hit the Covenant at their main chapterhouse. Installment Immortality sort of deals with the consequence of that, in that it is focused on what happens to a ghost who blows everything up and can’t quite get away from the bomb and also gives an update on the state of the Covenant following that attack.

On the assumption Seanan McGuire isn’t just getting starting fifteen books into the series, It seems like we’re getting close to a potential end game for Incryptid (this is also notable after reading the description for next year’s book Butterfly Effects).

That’s neither here nor there when thinking about Installment Immortality, but the future of the series was weighing on my mind when reading it.

What Installment Immortality does well is tell what is functionally a side story from the main Price family action. Still a ghost getting to do ghost things Mary Dunlavy is put on a quest to put a stop to Covenant agents attacking the ghosts of America - and through this examines the consequences of several books ago regarding cousin Arthur (again, this will make sense if you know the series - I don’t know that I’d recommend jumping in here even though it’s a new narrator and those are typically jump in spots).

As a general rule I love this series. Seanan McGuire has done a fantastic job making Incryptid feel very lived in. We’ve been on a *journey* with this family and everything is familiar even with McGuire is doing new things, shifting perspectives, and making things generally uncomfortable for her characters. It’s impossible to read Installment Immortality in a vacuum. It’s the fifteenth book in a series that I’ve been reading for many years after diving headfirst into Discount Armageddon.

If Installment Immortality isn’t one of my favorite books of the series, and it’s not, it is still an overall satisfying read but I think primarily for those who have been along for the ride and it doesn’t hit some of the highs of earlier books in the series.

Overcaptain, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr

Alyiakal returns in Overcaptain, the latest entry in L.E. Modesitt’s long running Saga of Recluce. Following the events of From the Forest, success comes with a price and Alyiakal has been promoted, assigned to close a military post that has been a hot mess, and further assigned to be deputy Commander to an officer who doesn’t want the help.

There’s a trend in the Recluce series of extremely competent men who don’t fit the perfect political mold of those in power but who do their jobs so well their advancement cannot be denied but are given continually impossible tasks that are designed to either fail or kill them (or both). If you’re down for that, along with the understanding that Recluce novels live in the mundanity of their protagonists day to day lives that hint and build towards a much greater conflict.

Modesitt’s prose is smooth and Overcaptain is languorous easy reading. I continually describe Recluce as comfort reading, which isn’t to say that the action itself is comfort but Overcaptain (and the rest of the series) is a book to sink in and just live in this world for as long as it takes to make it to the end. The journey is the point of Recluce, much less so than the destination - but the destination always includes some fireworks.

Overcaptain is another solid entry in the Saga of Recluce.


PUBLISHED BY: Joe Sherry - Senior Editor of Nerds of a Feather. Hugo and Ignyte Winner. Minnesotan.

Nanoreviews: Knot of Shadows, Rose / House, The Terraformers

Knot of Shadows, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Following off the first full length Penric and Desdemona novel, Lois McMaster Bujold returns with Knot of Shadows, the eleventh volume in this The World of the Five Gods subseries. By reading order, this is the latest in the chronology - and though readers can jump into the series at any point, new readers may lose some of the richness of the characterization. I probably wouldn’t start here, though I do recommend the series as a whole.

Knot of Shadows is the story of Penric and Desdemona (his live-in-his-body demon) investigating a drowning victim who returned to partial life - not through CPR, mind you, just straight up dead. So there’s murder, magic, and it’s absolutely not a romp. Knot of Shadows is a thoughtful delve into some of the theology behind The World of Five Gods and how that murder occurred and what the larger implications are. It’s not cheerful, but as with everything Bujold writes - Knot of Shadows is excellent.

Rose / House, by Arkady Martine

Rose / House is quite a change from Arkady Martine’s Hugo Award winning novels A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace. Those were political space operas, while Rose / House is a novella set on a near future Earth where artificial intelligence is common. This is half of a haunted house story (where the AI of Rose House is the haunt) and half a murder mystery. How does a murder occur in a locked house that is only opened but once a year and only for one particular person, a former student of the owner?

This is an atmospheric novella, Rose / House feels quiet and grim with the detective chipping away at how to investigate with minimal opportunity to access the crime scene - the novella comes across as haunted even without stepping into the house. While perhaps not as inviting as the Teixcalaan novels, Rose / House is a satisfying novella and demonstrates more of the range readers can expect from Martine as she pushes away from Teixcalaan.

The Terraformers, by Annalee Newitz

The third novel from Annalee Newitz, The Terraformers spans centuries of a team terraforming Sask-E into a world where humans can live and thrive - told through the perspective of the Environmental Rescue Team, an organization that balances the needs of their clients to transform a world with a goal of finding an ecological balance.

While intensely modern, The Terraformers presents as a fairly classic science fiction fix-up novel - it is less of a conventional novel telling one story with one set of characters than it is three linked but distinct stories - and it is very much a novel of ideas. The Terraformers, while being at times a very exciting novel of political drama (with a brief pitched battle) works through the ethics of bioengineered humans, what it means to be a person, sentience, the ethics of terraforming, and corporate responsibility. Newitz’s perspective may not be a surprise, just reading the jacket copy will tell readers where they are coming down on most of these issues - but how Newitz tells the story is remarkable. The Terraformers is excellent and important science fiction.

Joe Sherry - Senior Editor at Nerds of a Feather, Hugo Award Winner. Minnesotan. He / Him

Nanoreviews: The Assassins of Thasalon, Lost in the Moment and Found

The Assassins of Thasalon, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Subterranean Press)

The Assassins of Thasalon is the first full length novel in the the Penric / Desdemona series following nine previous novellas. Penric (Temple Sorcerer) and Desdemona (the demon which resides within Penric) is off to Cedonia to investigate a demon attack on his brother in law, Adelis, and hopefully defend his life from future attacks.

Interestingly, that aspect is much less of the novel than readers might expect because when the would-be assassin is identified the story takes a different direction as she was only doing the job out of coercion and that underlying conflict is a much larger concern - a concern specifically of interest to Penric’s god.

As a general rule, readers can jump into a Lois McMaster Bujold novel (or novella) pretty much at any time and fully understand the story - and that is absolutely the case with The Assassins of Thasalon, though long time readers will find much to appreciate as Bujold brings back characters from Penric’s past. Bujold is a masterful storyteller and The Assassins of Thasalon is another absolute winner.

 

Lost in the Moment and Found, by Seanan McGuire (Tordotcom Publishing)

Bolstered by a content warning leading into the novella, the first quarter of Lost in the Moment and Found is deeply upsetting as Seanan McGuire introduces readers to Antsy, a small child who had a very good life until her father died and her mother remarried to a man who was not…good. Because this is a Wayward Children novel, she leaves. She runs. She finds a door and she is sure.

Where the Drowned Girls Go introduce another school that is run very differently than Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children. Throughout the series, McGuire has alternated between the present day at the schools and the backstory of a child who doesn’t belong finding a door. Lost in the Moment and Found is a story of a child escaping into a door, but moreso than any other novella in the Wayward Children series it expands the universe far wider than anything McGuire has revealed thus far because Antsy’s door doesn’t lead to another world, it leads to a shop between worlds, a nexus as other characters described it.

This is to be appreciated because while a long running series can be comfortable in formula, those moments that break the formula or escalate the story beyond where it was before are to be treasured. Lost in the Moment and Found offers that moment once the reader is allowed to breathe.

 

Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, Hugo Award Winner. Minnesotan. He / Him 

 

Nanoreviews: The Physicians of Vilnoc, Isolate, The Immortal Conquistador

Bujold, Lois McMaster. The Physicians of Vilnoc [Subterranean]
This is the plague novella that was supposed to come out before The Orphans of Raspay (the pirate novella) but was delayed because of, well, the real world pandemic. I'm pretty sure I have that right. Regardless, one Learned Penric is happy and content with his life when his brother-in-law asks for Penric's help as a physician. Apparently there is a touch of plague at the military fort and perhaps Penric (and his demon Desdemona) can help.

The question, of course, isn't whether Penric will stop the plague it's how Penric will stop the plague. Which is good, it's always nice when someone is able to stop a potential pandemic. It's interesting reading Physicians of Vilnoc during an actual pandemic where we're not sure how far things will go - though reading Vilnoc in 2021 might have been a different experience than if I read it earlier in 2020.

Listen, this is the eighth published Penric and Desdemona novella. You can mostly jump in wherever and Bujold gives enough context to figure it all out but the richer context is from having read more of the series of very linked stand alone novellas. Lois McMaster Bujold doesn't miss and she doesn't miss here. Physicians of Vilnoc is excellent
Score: 8/10

Modesitt Jr, L.E. Isolate [Tor]
Isolate is a fantasy novel from L.E. Modesitt, Jr. That sentence is doing a lot of work and it is important because if you've read any of Modesitt's fantasy novels you have a pretty good sense of the shape and style of Isolate. If you've read more than one of his fantasy novels, you have a really good idea what sort of novel this is.

Isolate is set in a somewhat more modern setting - there are cars (though steam powered) and buses and the primary city of the novel just feels more modern than anything we've seen in Recluce or Imager or the Corean Chronicles. Steffan Dekkard is somewhat older and more accomplished, which is something I appreciate when Modesitt writes full adults rather than the youth who needs everything explained - though Dekkard is a political neophyte and as the security for a councilor, he is getting new political lessons as he is going to be coming up in that world. It's not that much different than any of the Recluce protagonists reading The Basis of Order and working on theory. Here it's a lot of political conversations, local politics as well as some that touch a wider nation. If you like all of that, if you like the slow burn and the day to day interactions and meals (and meals) and theory and even some political campaigning and that does build to a larger conflict that is oh so slowly being revealed - Isolate is for you. It's the first novel in a new series that is completely unrelated to any of Modesitt's other works. L.E. Modesitt, Jr writes a L.E. Modesitt, Jr novel and for me, that's exactly what I'm looking for.
Score: 7/10

Vaughn, Carrie. The Immortal Conquistador [Tachyon]
Rick has never been my favorite character in the Kitty Norville series. Long time readers know Rick as the vampire Master of Denver and eventual friend / ally of Kitty. I never thought much about it in these terms when reading the series as it was published, but I was very much Team Werewolf. The vampires were either antagonists or a nuisance in some fashion, not counting the ultimate evil of Dux Bellorum. But likewise, I also never wondered about Rick, and how he got that way. If Rick and his vampire hijinks are your thing, this is the collection for you!

With that said, The Immortal Conquistador is a short story collection (with a linking interstitial storyline) written by Carrie Vaughn and she's a fantastic writer. Though Rick isn't necessarily my favorite, the collected origin stories of Ricardo de Avila are as delightful and charming as I've come to expect from Vaughn. These are smoothly told and, frankly, the idea of Rick befriending and briefly adventuring with Doc Holliday works far better than it has any right to and I wouldn't wanted to have missed it. Come for a vampire who wants nothing more than to never meet another vampire, stay for "Dead Men in Central City"
Score: 8/10

Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 5x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him

The Novella Initiative: The Flowers of Vashnoi by Lois McMaster Bujold

Subject:  Lois McMaster Bujold, The Flowers of Vashnoi, [Spectrum Literary Agency, 2018]

Genre: Science Fiction

Executive Summary:

Still new to her duties as Lady Vorkosigan, Ekaterin is working together with expatriate scientist Enrique Borgos on a radical scheme to recover the lands of the Vashnoi exclusion zone, a lingering radioactive legacy of the Cetagandan invasion of the planet Barrayar. When Enrique’s experimental bioengineered creatures go missing, the pair discover that the zone still conceals deadly old secrets.

Assessment:

The latterly novels and stories in the Miles Vorkosigan sequence have been moving away from Miles as primary narrator or even primary character, and The Flowers of Vashnoi continues that trend. Here, Miles’ wife Ekaterin takes the primary point of view and takes lead and point of view of the narrative as she and her  team work on a project on the edge of a still radioactive zone, while Miles is mostly wrapped up in city politics.

As this is a relatively late story in the sequence, a big part of this novella is all about the resonances with other stories, and other themes in the whole Vorkosigan sequence. The most direct resonance is with A Civil Campaign, where we first met Enrique, and we also meet the original iteration of the “butter bugs” which are the aforementioned bioengineered creatures being used experimentally to hasten the decontamination of the land. 

The second resonance is with another non-Miles story, and that is Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance. (The novella takes place just after that novel for those trying to fix it in time)  That novel, while initially focusing on Ivan and some offworld adventures, does in the end bring him home, and he does wind up confronting legacies of the invasion of the Cetagandans. The entirety of the Exclusion Zone IS a legacy of that invasion both for Barrayar in general and for the Vorkosigan family in particular. We get a little more, too, about Miles and his Grandfather’s Piotr’s relationship here, which enriches the narrative, again, for readers of the entire sequence.

The last resonance for this novella, and I think it is absolutely deliberate on the author’s part to mirror the story in terms of plot elements, is to a story very early written in the Vorkosigan sequence, “The Mountains of Mourning” . In that novella, a young Miles goes into similar terrain and country and faces a problem that if not exactly the same as Ekaterin faces here mainly on her own, certainly resonates and rhymes with it. I think this is a deliberate strategy, and this novella then works on the level of showing how much Barrayar, especially outside of the booming cities, has changed in a couple of decades.  And, of course, how much it is certainly not changed as well. 

Given those resonances being much of what makes this novella work, and given that the depiction and portrayal of Ekaterin very much depends on having read Komarr and A Civil Campaign, this is a novella that I think is very strictly for the fans, but the fans will be delighted by it.

Score: 8/10

 POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Nanoreviews: The Orphans of Raspay, The Monster Baru Cormorant, A Killing Frost

Bujold, Lois McMaster. The Orphans of Raspay [Subterranean Press]

After seven novellas, Lois McMaster Bujold is treading on familiar ground - Penric finds himself in something of a pickle and with a combination of smart thinking, luck, and Desdemona's help manages to make his way out of said pickle. This is all told with wit, warmth, and heart.

So it was and so it is with The Orphans of Raspay, where Bujold adds orphans and pirates (and not the fun pirates, at that - these pirates are fairly gross). It's not a romp, but on the other hand we never quite feel that Penric is in real danger. The question is how will he get out of it this time and can he protect the orphans at the same time? It's a Penric novella and it's written by Bujold, The Orphans of Raspay is a delight.
Score: 7/10

Dickinson, Seth. The Monster Baru Cormorant [Tor]

Adri already wrote about The Monster Baru Cormorant two years ago in a much longer form review. Her review is worth a read, I agree with much of what she had to say. The novel is one political maneuver after another, and for as much as Baru was able to play the political game with adeptness in The Traitor Baru Cormorant, she comes across as a bit out of her depth here in Monster as she is brought in closer to the power of Falcrest / The Masquerade and everyone around her has been playing politics as a game for perhaps more years than Baru has been alive.

Dickinson's writing is as sharp as it was in Traitor, but Monster is a much slower paced novel - not quite plodding, but let's call it deliberate since my opinion of Monster is generally favorable. Baru is willing to do almost anything to reach her goal of achieving enough power to both destroy Falcrest from within as well as save her home island. There are two significant moments of Baru demonstrating that, one so early in the novel it would almost not be a spoiler to reveal and one quite a bit later in the story. It is Baru willing to sacrifice her humanity, sacrifice almost anything and anyone. But, there are almost a few scattered moments of Baru questioning those choices - that maybe her scorched earth ambition might be better served with actual forward thinking and planning compared to taking each moment as a discrete entity. 

The Monster Baru Cormorant does not stand alone. So much of the context depends on Traitor, but it serves to whet the appetite to see how Baru might possibly achieve her goals and at what cost (as if the cost has not been high enough already. Dickinson tells a brutal story, but it's not quite one you want to look away from (even if sometimes you're reading with one eye open)
Score: 7/10

McGuire, Seanan. A Killing Frost [DAW]

Oh, my heart. It's somewhat odd to think that a significant event in the world of Faerie can feel somewhat minor key, but to be completely vague - it did, but not in a way that felt minimized. It felt deliberate and thoughtful, The heart of the novel is Toby's quest (it's always a quest with Toby) to find and restore Simon Torquill, her tormentor who has lost his memory of almost any good act and intention he had for decades.

McGuire's storytelling is as on point as ever. A Killing Frost is the fourteenth novel in the October Daye series and it feels as fresh as it did with the first couple of novels and as familiar as readers might hope. Seanan McGuire isn't afraid to break her readers hearts and then toy with them, but it is always in service to ever building and expanding and revealing the world of faerie, evolving what we know and what is possible.
Score: 8/10


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 4x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him.

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 new and forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Bujold, Louis McMaster. Penric's Travels [Baen]

Publisher's Description:

Tales of a new hero in fantasy from Lois McMaster Bujold, together for the first time!  Including Penric’s Mission, Mira’s Last Dance, and The Prisoner of Limnos. He does it his way!

Penric’s Mission: Learned Penric, a sorcerer and divine of the Bastard’s Order, has faced danger and intrigue many times before. Now, he finds himself on his first covert diplomatic mission. Penric must travel across the sea to Cedona in an attempt to secure the services of the Cedonia General Arisaydia for the Duke of Adria. But nothing is as it seems. No sooner than he has arrived, Penric finds himself tossed into a dungeon. If Penric is to survive, he’ll have to navigate treacherous politics—and his own feelings for the young widowed sister of the General.

Mira’s Last Dance: Penric, suffering from injuries attained while escaping from the Cedonian dungeon in which he was imprisoned, must now guide General Arisaydia and his widowed sister, Nikys, across the last hundred miles of hostile Cedonia to safety in the Duchy of Orbas. In the town of Sosie, the fugitive party encounters unexpected delays, and even more unexpected opportunities and hazards, as the courtesan Mira of Adria, one of the ten dead women whose imprints make up the personality of the chaos demon Desdemona, comes to the fore with her own special expertise.

The Prisoner of Limnos: Penric and Nikys have reached safety in the Duchy of Orbas when a secret letter from a friend brings frightening news: Nikys's mother has been taken hostage by her brother's enemies at the Cedonian imperial court and confined in a precarious island sanctuary.

Now, Nikys, Penric, and Desdemona must infiltrate the hostile country once more, finding along the way that family relationships can be as unexpectedly challenging as any rescue scheme.

Why We Want It: While not a new novella from Lois McMaster Bujold, this second Penric and Desdemona collection is essential reading for fans of Bujold who may have missed the novellas the first time around or just wants them all in one place.

Collins, Suzanne. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes [Scholastic]

Publisher's Description:

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the 10th annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to out charm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

 The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined - every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute...and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.  

Why We Want It: While many have been looking forward to a potential Hunger Games prequel novel, I'm not sure anyone really wanted a Young President Snow novel. The rise of a dictator is less interesting than other stories that can be told - but with that said, we trust Suzanne Collins to tell a good story.

Johnson, Alaya Dawn. Trouble the Saints [Tor]

Publisher's Description:

The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in Alaya Dawn Johnson's timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City, where an assassin falls in love and tries to change her fate at the dawn of World War II.

Amid the whir of city life, a young woman from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to use her knives to strike fear among its most dangerous denizens.

Ten years later, Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything—not just her own past, and Dev, the man she loved, but even her own dreams.

Still, the ghosts from her past are always by her side—and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she keeps in her heart. And so Phyllis will have to make a harrowing choice, before it’s too late—is there ever enough blood in the world to wash clean generations of injustice?

Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel—a magical love story, a compelling exposure of racial fault lines—and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga.

Why We Want It: I've read some of Alaya Dawn Johnson's short fiction years ago, but haven't kept up with her novel length work. It's certainly possible that The Night Circus meets The Underground Railroad is overselling Trouble the Saints, but it's also one hell of a recommendation and I want to see if Trouble the Saints rises to the billing. If so, this will be incredible.

King, Stephen. If It Bleeds [Scribner]

Publisher's Description

From #1 New York Times bestselling author, legendary storyteller, and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary collection of four new and compelling novellas—Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat, and the title story If It Bleeds—each pulling you into intriguing and frightening places.

The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career, and many have been made into iconic films, including “The Body” (Stand By Me) and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (Shawshank Redemption). Like Four Past Midnight, Different Seasons, and most recently Full Dark, No Stars, If It Bleeds is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer.

Why We Want It: Some of Stephen King's strongest work is at novella length and while we're always excited for new Stephen King - we're often more excited when it is a collection of shorter works. While many of his most famous novellas were published decades ago, King is still doing strong work and pushing himself in directions we'd never have expected from a younger Stephen King. We *are* excited to check out this collection of four novellas.

Kress, Nancy. The Eleventh Gate [Baen]

Publisher's Description

WHAT LIES BEYOND THE ELEVENTH GATE...

Despite economic and territorial tensions, no one wants the city-states of the Eight Worlds to repeat the Terran Collapse by going to war. But when war accidentally happens, everyone seeks ways to exploit it for gain.  The Landry and Peregoy ruling dynasties see opportunities to grab territory, increase profits, and settle old scores.  Exploited underclasses use war to fuel rebellion.  Ambitious heirs can finally topple their elders’ regimes—or try to.

But the unexpected key to either victory or peace lies with two persons uninterested in conquest, profits, or power.   Philip Anderson seeks only the transcendent meaning of the physics underlying the universe.  Tara Landry, spoiled and defiant youngest granddaughter of dynasty head Rachel Landry, accidentally discovers an eleventh star-jump gate, with a fabulous find on the planet behind it.  Her discovery, and Philip’s use of it, alter everything for the Eight Worlds.

Why We Want It: Nancy Kress's bibliography is extensive and while there is plenty more to read, we know that a new Nancy Kress novel will be imaginative science fiction. While most of her more recent novels have been near future science fiction, Kress's return to space opera is something to look forward to.

Wells, Martha. Network Effect [Tor.com Publishing]

Publisher's Description

Murderbot returns in its highly-anticipated, first, full-length standalone novel, Network Effect.

You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you're a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you're Murderbot.

Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.

I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.

When Murderbot's human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.

Why We Want It: New Murderbot. Okay, let me rephrase that. After four excellent novellas, Network effect is the first full length Murderbot novel!

POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 4x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him.

The Hugo Initiative: The Novels of 1999: A Retrospective: A Preview of My Genre Future (2000, Best Novel)

1999 was a banner year for me. A couple of years (at the age of 28) into starting to read “seriously” in science fiction, I had been subscribed to Locus for a couple of years now, I was reading past and current Hugo nominees and Nebula nominees and winners for a couple of years, and I had decided, in that fateful year, to do something I had not done previously: Vote in the Hugo Awards. I was pretty disconnected from any sort of organized fandom, I had only been to one con, but I dutifully became a member of the 2000 Worldcon (held in Chicago, but I didn’t have the temerity to actually attend), and proceeded to vote in the Hugo awards for books in 1999.

The Hugo nominees for the 2000 Worldcon were as follows:

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge [Tor, 1999]
A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold [Baen, 1999]
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson [Avon, 1999]
Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear [HarperCollins UK, 1999; Ballantine Del Rey, 1999]
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling [Bloomsbury, 1999; Scholastic, 1999]

At the time that Hugo voting had ended, I had read four of them, and voted on that basis. (I had not yet read any Harry Potter and did not feel inclined to read through the series, I would feel different several years later) 2000 was about the first time I started to dip my toes into getting review copies, but it would be many more years before I got my “break” in that regard. I fondly remember getting an ARC of Darwin’s Radio, it was quite the surprise and delight.

So without further ado, let’s look at the Hugo Finalists (called Hugo Nominees then) for the year 1999.

A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge

At the time I was just so delighted to have another novel in the “zones” verse of A Fire Upon the Deep, even if it was a very loose prequel, just having Pham as the only link between the two novels. Still, the ideas of the Zones from an outside perspective, thanks to the conceit of a solar system right on the edge of the boundary, and the idea of  a three way first contact situation, this was the kind of SF I ate up with a spoon. A Deepness in the Sky was exactly what I thought that modern science fiction should be about, this was fueled by at the time of a renaissance of space opera after a fallow period for the subgenre.

Now, looking back, like its predecessor , some of the technology and assumptions feel a bit dated. There are some interesting conceits here, and the weird high concept of Unix versus Windows except expressed as polities and their operating parameters was something I just didn’t get, then, but I sure see now. Those frameworks do not hold up quite as well for me in 2019 as they did in 1999. Technology and the modes of computers are a very different beast in this day and age. The computing world was a smaller place, then, and now, for many people, operating systems and their fundamental principles just aren’t relevant. I also think, now, in this day and age, the Spiders could have been handled a bit better. Perhaps I have been spoiled by writers like Adrian Tchaikovsky, but Vinge’s spiders do not seem alien *enough*, and the revelation that they have been secretly in on a lot of the communications and spying on both sides could have been foreshadowed or flagged earlier in the narrative for best effect.

A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold

Deep within the Vorkosigan series, A Civil Campaign is the “Romance novel” of the set, as the plot revolves around Miles Vorkosigan trying to win the heart of Ekaterin, who met Miles, and  in the course of events became widowed, in the previous novel, Komarr. Miles fell head over heels for Ekaterin, and while Barrayaran customs mean that she should not be openly courted so soon after her husband’s death. And since Ekaterin’s husband’s death is tied to Miles’ investigation, there are all sorts of political and social landmines in Miles way. Meantime, Barrayar is a changing, with a sex change to make a woman eligible to inherit an estate, and another putative heir to another estate may have Cetagandan ancestry.

And then there are the butterbugs, the most fun part of the plot. So this novel is relatively light on the sciences, and strong on the manners and courtship. There was a movement in novels back there, particularly in fantasy, called “mannerpunk”, where works by writers like Sherwood Smith were a noticeable theme in Fantasy. At the time, I saw ACC being an SFnal version of the same. So, I didn’t think too much of the novel at the time. I wanted more Miles as Lord Auditor, not Miles as moonstruck young man (disclaimer, I was in a rough place, relationship speaking, at the time)

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

By this point, I had read Stephenson’s Snow Crash, because it seemed to be the thing to do. I had really really liked The Diamond Age, because I felt I kinda understood the basics of computing thanks to the primer within the novel. At the time of Cryptonomicon, I was also somewhat interested in codes and cyphers and always have been, really. So when Cryptonomicon dropped into my lap in 1999, it was very much a dive into delight. Paralleling time frames, lots of historical characters, a ton of detail and research that comes out onto the page, I think then and now, it’s clear to me that the novel is the first “modern” Stephenson--a big sprawling book that reflects the author’s desire to go down deep deep rabbit holes and take willing readers with him. At the time, I definitely was a willing reader.

Today? I’ve cooled quite a bit on Stephenson’s work and it doesn’t quite excite me to the level it once did. Oftentimes thee days, I want something more than the rabbit hole, and frankly, reading Stephenson these days is a big investment in time and effort that for me doesn’t always pay off as it once did. The digressions sometimes are “get to the POINT” rather than “oh nice, here we go down a mini rabbit hole within the rabbit hole. In Cryptonomicon itself, I am thinking particularly of the erotica side story within the novel.

Sometimes you need an stronger hand from the editor.

Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear

Back in the 80’s the Eon sequence brought Greg Bear to my attention (Blood Music came later). Novels like that sequence, Songs of Earth and Power, Moving Mars, Slant...I didn’t get a good sense of his real range until a couple of years before Darwin’s Radio, when he popped up with an alternate history YA novel, Dinosaur Summer. I began to see that Bear had a wide range indeed to his pen.

 But even so, when I dived into Darwin’s Radio, I read it with the wrong protocols, at the time. I kept expecting this to be a science fiction novel, or a hard science fiction novel, in any event. I was underprepared at the time and kept waiting for the hard SF to kick in. I didn’t quite realize until relatively late in the novel’s narrative (which involves “junk DNA” turning out to be not so much junk and instead a mechanism for speciation of Humans into a new species) is really a technothriller with a lot of biology, rather than a science fiction novel. I was expecting something far more akin to Nancy Kress’ Beggars in Spain and didn’t get it in the book, which was confusing to me at the time.

These days, having read more technothrillers and understanding and grokking the form and style, I can see what Darwin’s Radio is and what it’s trying to do much better now. It is a technothriller with an extra dollop of SFNal setting and backmatter, something that I have decided since is not usually to my taste. Bear’s writing, and Darwin’s Radio are an exemplar of the form, however. If you were an SF fan who wanted to step into Technothriller waters, The book would be a good choice. (Coincidentally, the more recent and unrelated The Darwin Elevator by Jason Hough also would qualify in that regard).. Whether a novel that is mostly Technothriller something that should be nominated, or win the Hugo award--I am in favor of a big, broad tent. But I can see how some people might demur.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

At the time of the 2000 Hugos,as  mentioned above, I had not read any of the Harry Potter series. I had seen the first three movies, and enjoyed them, but my feelings about MG and YA novels had not evolved to the point that I had felt inclined to pick up the books for myself. (This would eventually change with the release of Half Blood Prince, whereupon I decided I would dive into the series). I did find Prisoner as a movie to be intriguing because of Cuaron’s directorial style.

As far as the novel, when I did read the book, I felt that the movie was the first where they really started to have to excise whole rafts of the novel in order to fit the plot into a 2 hour movie. When I read the book, and then rewatched the movie after, I was impressed how much the movie captured the overall spirit of the book, even as I realized how rich the book was. I began to see how much young teenage readers were in having the series at hand, Books of Gold for readers to try genre fiction. I may not see it as the best book of 2000 but I can see why it broke through the nomination list and became a finalist.

In the end, A Deepness in the Sky won the 2000 Hugo. Did Hugo voters get it right? Did I get it right for myself? I think that it really did. Even with the nits above, its head and shoulders better than the other nominees.

What I voted then:
1. A Deepness in the Sky
2. Darwin’s Radio
3. Cryptonomicon
4. A Civil Campaign
5. Left Blank

(I didn’t understand the real nuances of No Award, I just stopped my list at four. What I probably meant at the time was to put No Award as my fifth.)

What I would vote today:
1. A Deepness in the Sky
2. A Civil Campaign
3. Darwin’s Radio
4. Cryptonomicon
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban 


What other books in 1999 did the Hugo voters miss? That I missed?

Walter Jon Williams’ catastrophe novel, The Rift, came out in 1999 and sank without a trace. Pat Murphy’s retelling of The Hobbit in space, There and Back Again, also came out, and I missed that one for years, too. Judith Tarr teamed up with Harry Turtledove for their novel Household Gods, a time travel novel in the tradition of Lest Darkness Fall, but with a female protagonist. I read that one at the time and liked it. I think it’s even stronger today. Dragonshadow, by Barbara Hambly, was also a strong novel. But in that day and age, fantasy was rarely on the Hugo ballot, Harry Potter being an outlier in that regard.

Did I keep voting and nominating in the Hugo Awards? Well, reader, sadly life sort of got in the way. I voted in 2001, but then 9/11 and its aftermath led me to a path that caused me to leave New York, forestall my nascent reviewing chops for a while, and I would not get myself settled in that regard and begin reviewing, or voting in the Hugos, for several more years. But in retrospect, the 2000 Awards, and the year 1999, was a preview of my genre future.


POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Nanoreviews: The Flowers of Vashnoi, That Ain't Witchcraft, Atmosphaera Incognita

Bujold, Lois McMaster. The Flowers of Vashnoi [Subterranean]

With no expectation of another full length Vorkosigan novel anywhere on the horizon, the publication of The Flowers of Vashnoi was a welcome addition to the canon. It's a somewhat unexpected story as the novella focuses on Ekaterin instead of Miles, Cordelia, or even Ivan. Through Ekaterin, Bujold tells the story of the Vashnoi region which is still irradiated from the long ago nuclear bombardment of the district. That's not what the novella is about, of course. This is the story of some of the people who still live in that district, scratching out an existence away from "civilization". It's about survivors, autonomy, doing right, and the responsibilities of power.

It is, as might be expected from Lois McMaster Bujold, a story told with grace and skill and a unmatched smoothness. I've seen an inclination of others to describe The Flowers of Vashnoi as "minor Bujold", but that fails to acknowledge that a "minor" work from Bujold would be a major work from nearly any other writer. Compared to the absolute best of Bujold, perhaps this is "minor Bujold, but it is simply an excellent story told well.
Score: 8/10

McGuire, Seanan. That Ain't Witchcraft [DAW]

With the eighth novel in the Hugo Award finalist Incryptid series, Seanan McGuire brings the three novel story arc of Antimony Price to a close. Still dealing with the fallout from Verity announcing to the world (and mostly to the Covenant) that the Prices are alive and standing in opposition to the Covenant’s goals, Antimony is likewise dealing with the ramifications of having to make a deal at the Crossroads to save her life and those of her friends – the ramification being that one day the Crossroads will come to collect. This is that novel.

McGuire pulls off the impressive task of having a huge world changing event late in the novel that is also somehow not the most significant thing that happened in That Ain’t Witchcraft in terms of impact to the Price family, and even that world changing event might be presumed of a smaller scale than it really is. This isn’t the space to go into the spoilers of what and why, but what McGuire pulled off is far more impressive than it might seem on the surface. Also impressive is that eight novels into a series I am in a continual state of delight at how fresh McGuire has been able to keep the series. The shifting viewpoint characters may have something to do with that. As such, I will be sad to say goodbye (for now) to Antimony Price and excited to see what Seanan McGuire has in store for us with Sarah Zellaby as the new viewpoint character in next year’s Imaginary Numbers.
Score: 7/10

Stephenson, Neal. Atmosphaera Incognita [Subterranean]

I am not a Neal Stephenson aficianado by any stretch of the imagination, only having read Seveneves previously and that is it, so I cannot speak to how Atmosphaera Incognita compares to his other work except that it is shorter. At its core, Atmosphaera Incognita is about building a space tower. That sentence doesn't sound nearly impressive enough to describe the scope of that project. This isn't a science text, but much of the story is built around the engineering of the tower - the challenge of the whole thing and the soaring success of accomplishment. It works.
Score: 7/10



Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 3x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan.

Summer Reading List 2019: Joe

There are many things in this life which I really, really like. Two of them are reading books and making lists. A third would be making lists about reading books. Strangely, I'm not sure if I want to read a book about making lists, so we'll just move right on from there, shall we?

It is something of a tradition here at Nerds of a Feather to post one's Summer Reading List. Now, since I've been adulting for quite a number of years, the concept of "summer" doesn't have quite the same cache for me as it might have two decades ago. I have to go to work in July much the same as I do in February. And while the summer does mean more trips up to the family cabin, now that I have a child, some of that time spent reading on a swing overlooking a lake with a beer in my hand is going to be spent playing with my children. This is not a bad thing.

With all of that said, I do rather enjoy making lists about books. Nerds of a Feather is a genre blog, so while I plan to continue to read more non fiction each year and I've been reading an increasing amount of non SFF fiction, I do still get through more than one hundred books each year, so what I'm going to highlight is some of the science fiction and fantasy I plan / hope to read this summer.

For those keeping score at home, I have only read three of the six books I listed last year, so I hope to show some improvement with this year's list.

1. The Black Raven, by Katharine Kerr

Most years I can't be trusted to read more than two books by a single author in the same year and because of that, I've been working on my Reading Deverry series for four years now and I have only written two of the four planned essays. The Black Raven is one of two Deverry novels I need to read this year if there is any hope of not continuing my two and a half year gap between essays. The farther we get from Rhodry and Jill, the more this is beginning to feel like a different series - but it is one I'm still invested in.

2. Grass, by Sheri S. Tepper

I had long meant for Grass to be the first Sheri Tepper novel I read, but then Feminist Futures happened and I turned to The Gate to Women's Country (my review) for that project.  I'm not sure if Grass is truly Tepper's most iconic work, but it is the one novel of hers that has been on my radar for more years than I can count, and a copy of Grass has been on my bookshelf for almost as many years as that, which means that it is well past time that I finally read it.

3. The Flowers of Vashnoi, by Lois McMaster Bujold

I didn't write a proper essay on my reading resolutions for 2019, but I do have a list of a number of books I want to read this year in seven different categories. One resolution was to fully catch up on Bujold's Vorkosigan novels. At the time, I had eight left to read. Today I have one, the most recently published novella, Flowers of Vashnoi. I'm not ready to say goodbye to the series, but it is time.

4. The Shore of Women, by Pamela Sargent

Sargent is most well known as a novelist, but I discovered her work as an anthologist during my reading for the Feminist Futures project as she edited the Women of Wonder anthologies. Pamela Sargent is the author of 21 novels. The Shore of Women is one of her more notable standalone works and even though we are not pushing Feminist Futures as an active an ongoing project as it was last year, it has indelibly shaped my reading.

5. Semiosis, by Sue Burke

I've had a copy of Semiosis since before the novel was published, have heard nothing but praise and acclaim for the novel, but for no particular reason I just haven't read it. Semiosis is a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and perhaps that is the final push I need to pick up the book and dive in.

6. The Secret Feminist Cabal, by Helen Merrick

When I began work on our Feminist Future project last year there was one essay I wanted to write and wasn't sure if I would be able to, either because of time, research, or ability: a short history of feminist fanzines. Research became an issue as I struggled to find the level of detail I was looking for, but there was one work could help pull it all together - that being Helen Merrick's The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of Science Fiction Feminisms. It's time.



Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 3x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan.

Nanoreviews: The Prisoner of Limnos, Pocket Apocalypse, The Consuming Fire

Bujold, Lois McMaster. The Prisoner of Limnos [Spectrum Literary Agency, 2017 / Subterranean Press, 2019]

With The Prisoner of Limnos, Bujold brings to a close the major story arc of the Penric and Desdemona novellas, that being the gradual romance of Penric (temple sorcerer and host of the demon Desdemona) and Nikys (widow, interesting person in her own right). The plotline is the rescue of Nikys's mother, but the beating heart is Penric's somewhat awkward courtship of Nikys.

This isn't the Penric novella to start with. While I recommend all of them, at least start with Penric's Mission followed by Mira's Last Dance to get the Penric / Nikys storyline. But, with the background and emotional story. beats of the characters already set, The Prisoner of Limnos is a wonderful novella. Bujold is a grandmaster.
Score: 8/10

McGuire, Seanan. Pocket Apocalypse [DAW, 2015]

With Australia on the verge of a lycanthropic outbreak, Alexander Price returns in this fourth Incryptid novel from Seanan McGuire. Shelby Tanner, another crytopzoologist and Alex's girlfriend, asks Alex to come home with her and help her family and her organization protect the continent from an outbreak they may not be equipped to control.

Despite the overwhelming aggression of Shelby's family towards Alex, Pocket Apocalypse is an entertaining and satisfying read. Seanan McGuire set a strong standard of expectation with the first two Verity Price novels, but has succeeded to raise the bar with her two Alex Price offerings. Pocket Apocalypse opens up a new continent, widens the cryptid world, and reminds us that the Aeslin Mice truly are one of the greatest creatures in fantasy fiction.
Score: 7/10

Scalzi, John. The Consuming Fire [Tor, 2018]

If the Collapsing Empire moved at a breakneck pace, Scalzi slows down the narrative of The Consuming Fire just a touch. The Flows between the worlds are still collapsing, few believe it is happening, and Emperox Greyland II is preparing for both her Empire's survival of that collapse as well as from the internal threats moving against her. There's a lot going on, and Scalzi manages it all with his trademark wit and skillful ease of storytelling.

I expected a bit more Flow collapsing to occur in this novel and for that part of the story to progress faster and further than it did. One of the remarkable achievements of a series featuring the impending disappearance of rapid interstellar travel is that Scalzi manages to open and widen that universe in new and interesting ways that offer unexpected directions for this series to go. If you've read Scalzi before, if you've enjoyed his novels and were delighted by The Collapsing Empire, you should expect to be equally delighted by The Consuming Fire.
Score: 8/10



POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 & 2018 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan.

Reading the Hugos: Series

It's time for another installment of Reading the Hugos and it's time to either go big or go home. Since I'm already sitting at home while I write this, I think I'm going to go big and cover the abundance of excellence up for Best Series.

There is so much goodness here that it isn't even fair.

Best Series last year was a trial run, a special one time category (pending the ratification at the WSFS business meeting at last year's Worldcon) - which makes this the first full year of the category. I'm probably the only person who is going to think of things like this.

If last year was a proof of concept and this year represents the very high bar we should expect from the Best Series quality, we're looking at one of the strongest categories on the ballot year after year. The series I ranked lowest on my ballot is exceptional. The only challenge here is that there is a lot of reading to do to at least get a brief overview of each series, let alone do a deep dive.

Let's take a look at the finalists for Best Series.


The Books of the Raksura, by Martha Wells (Night Shade)
The Divine Cities, by Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway)
InCryptid, by Seanan McGuire (DAW)
The Memoirs of Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan (Tor US / Titan UK)
The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson (Tor US / Gollancz UK)
World of the Five Gods, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Harper Voyager / Spectrum Literary Agency)

The Books of the Raksura: I've only just come to Martha Wells via her excellent Murderbot novellas, though I had long intended to get to her novel length work - whether her Ile-Rien novels or The Books of the Raksura. What better time than now?

This isn't necessarily a new thing for fantasy (or science fiction), but I don't read many novels with non human protagonists. The Cloud Roads is one of them. The Raksura are humanoid (sometimes), but are shapeshifters and I don't quite now how to describe their other (primary?) forms. Dragon birds? Ultimately, it doesn't matter. What matters is the story of Moon, a raksura who doesn't know what he is. The Cloud Roads serves as introduction to the wider world and the series as a whole. The reader discovers along with Moon what it means to be a raksura.

Wells is a fantastic and accomplished storyteller. I regret that I'm only able to evaluate the series based on the first (excellent) novel, but as with every series on the ballot, I've run out of time to read more than I have. The good news is that I've discovered another series that I'm really excited to read more of.

Incryptid: After a five year gap between reading the first and second volumes of McGuire’s October Daye I was ready to fully embrace the series and spend the summer immersed in McGuire’s world. That plan was shot to hell when Incryptid, one of McGuire’s other series, was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Series. With the inclusion of the Best Series category, there is a LOT of reading to do for the Hugo Awards and Toby Daye was just going to have to wait.

Discount Armageddon introduces readers to Verity Price, a cryptozoologist / ballroom dancer spending a year in New York City where she has to decide if she’s going to take up the family trade of studying and protecting “supernatural” creatures from humans OR if she’s going to embark on a full time career in ballroom dance. It’s a conundrum. All of those legendary mythological creatures we’ve read about? They’re real and many of them are living among us, some in disguise, some in hiding, and some just living in the sewers. They’re not like the myths, but they’re even more fully realized than what we might come to expect. They’re people, except a completely different species. Several species, actually. The Incryptid novels are so silky smooth, but tense and occasionally intense. There’s plenty of action and new monster trivia and deep dives into particular creature cultures. The first two focus on Verity Price, the third on her brother Alexander as he works in Ohio doing his own thing for the family. The change in perspective was initially jarring, but McGuire handles the new viewpoint character perfectly and midway through I realized Half-Off Ragnarok was my favorite of the three Incryptid novels I have so far read.

I thought this was going to be the summer of October Daye, but it may well be the summer of the Price family. I will only have read the first three novels in the series by the time Hugo voting ends, but I will be working my way through the rest of the series this year. I’m hooked and I’m ready for the next four (as of this year). Maybe I’ll get back to Toby Daye next year.

The Stormlight Archive: I wonder if there will be a point in the future where Brandon Sanderson's entire Cosmere will be up for Best Series. I can see it happening. Happily, this finalist slot is for the three books so far published in The Stormlight Archive: The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer. These are each epic fantasy writ large. Sanderson's magnum opus. Each volume is approximately a googolplex of something long (words, pages, doesn't matter). They're great, but damn. It's a lot.

That's not really a complaint. Just a statement. At this point I've only read The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. Both were exactly what I was looking to read at the time I read them. Oathbringer has been on the nightstand by my bed since before it was published, looming, intimidating. I know I'm going to love it, but it's a commitment.

Regardless, The Stormlight Archive is an achievement of worldbuilding and long form storytelling. With only three books published thus far, the overall shape to the series is just beginning to form. Which is why, as good as these books are, I have a very difficult time saying this is the Best Series. It's one thing voting for an incomplete series that is mostly done It's another thing voting for a series that is only 3 books out of 10 complete. It's a good batting average in baseball, but it isn't good enough to push it to the top of my ballot.

The Memoirs of Lady Trent: There are two novels part of a Hugo Finalist series which I seriously regret not reading sooner. One is A Natural History of Dragons. The other is written by Lois McMaster Bujold and I'll talk about that one soon enough. Despite all of the praise Marie Brennan's novel received, there was something about the combination of the book cover (which is gorgeous, but not selling me as something I want to read) and the idea the series was "memoirs" of a "lady" that I found offputting enough to never pick up the book. Though, I did borrow it from the library once only to return it unopened. That was so very much a mistake. A Natural History of Dragons is absolutely wonderful and that wonder is tied to the glorious voice of Isabella Camherst.

Isabella is the titular "Lady Trent" of the series, and concept of A Natural History of Dragons being the first volume of "The Memoirs of Lady Trent" means that the much more accomplished Lady Trent is narrating her life and adventures. Late in life, Lady Trent is known as the foremost expert on dragons but in these early days, little is known by anyone. So, the first novel and presumably the series as a whole is a story of discovery and adventure. If the rest of the series is as good as A Natural History of Dragons, we're in for something special and I really, really should have been reading these books as they were published.

This does mean, of course, that I have only read the first volume of The Memoirs of Lady Trent and can only place it on my ballot based on one book rather than the full set of five. That's just the way this category goes, unfortunately. It is also a mark of just how good A Natural History of Dragons is.

The World of the Five Gods: Before the Hugo finalists were announced, I had read five of the six Penric novellas set in the World of the Five Gods, but none of the novels. So, I read The Curse of Chalion and re-discovered that I should always read everything written by Lois McMaster Bujold without question. My only defense is that I had not yet read anything by Bujold when The Curse of Chalion was first published in 2001 - but that's not much of a defense because she had published many books in the Vorkosigan series by that point (winner of the 2017 Hugo for Best Series, naturally).

The Penric novellas are very good. The Curse of Chalion is exceptional. With complete honestly, I was slightly angry when I finished it. Not because I didn't like it, but because I wasted so many years that I could have been reading this wonderful book and series. Next up, Paladin of Souls and The Hallowed Hunt. The truth is that readers should never sleep on Lois McMaster Bujold because she's always going to deliver a fantastic book and reading experience. As I mentioned, the Penric novellas are very good, but they only hint at just how good The Curse of Chalion was. The strength of Chalion pushes the entire series up the ballot.

The Divine Cities: Despite being my favorite of all the finalists up for Best Series (and the only one I had fully read prior to the announcement of the ballot), I have struggled to figure out my angle into writing about The Divine Cities. Each novel in the series was fully exceptional in its own right and, equally impressive, the sum of the series is even stronger than the individual volumes. The Divine Cities is urban epic fantasy with dead gods, magic, bureaucracy, and wretched tragedy (this could also be a description of a Max Gladstone novel). Each novel is self contained, but builds strongly off of the emotional beats of the previous work. You don’t need to have read a previous volume, but the emotion of City of Blades is strengthened by having gone on the journey of City of Stairs. The opening of City of Miracles works as a standalone set piece, but the rawest power comes from having lived the characters.

Somehow I have less to say about the Divine Cities than I expected, except to say this: City of Stairs, City of Blades, and City of Miracles were each among the best two or three fantasy novels published in their respective years. I can only give these novels my highest recommendation. They are absolutely fantastic. The trilogy hits the mark in telling a complete story spread across decades. If you like epic fantasy, you should read these books. If you like good books, you should read these books.


My Vote:
1. The Divine Cities
2. The World of the Five Gods
3. The Memoirs of Lady Trent
4. The Stormlight Archive
5. Incryptid
6. The Books of the Raksura


Our Previous Coverage
Novel 
Novella
Novelette
Short Story
Related Work
Professional Artist
Fancast
Fan Artist
Fan Writer
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 & 2018 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan.